


patch me up, heart, body and soul

by Kavi Leighanna (kleighanna)



Series: slow as honey [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Smut, Tumblr Prompt, and emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 20:41:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4235916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kleighanna/pseuds/Kavi%20Leighanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's sick of the way Steve's beating himself up with missions to take down Hydra. She's pretty sure Barnes would kill him for it. Since he hasn't decided to turn up yet, Maria figures it's up to her. </p><p>Except it doesn't work out like that. At all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	patch me up, heart, body and soul

**Author's Note:**

> You should know this is saved in my Dropbox as "First Aid Sex". So. 
> 
> Combined prompt: Maria patching up Steve and his reaction to her touch on his skin + shower sex.
> 
> Approximately 5300 words later...

He goes on mission after mission after mission after mission when he heals from the events of the Triskelion. At first, Maria assumes it’s revenge and intel gathering, Hydra missions in retaliation of the fallen SHIELD, and then that a mask for the information on Barnes he’s looking for. It isn’t until she goes to find him after a successful mission in Tibet that she realizes it’s not revenge or intel he’s after. It’s atonement.

It unsettles her more than she’d like to admit, finding him slamming his fist into a locker before he leans his forehead against the undented one next to it. He’s still in his redesigned tactical uniform, but she can’t say she’s ever seen Captain America look so defeated. She knows she needs to walk away, to leave him in peace, but she has never really been as stereotypically cold hearted as her reputation says. He is an agent in her care, and care she definitely does. The man she’s watching is very aware of that.

She steps from the shadows, a plan in her head and sets her tablet on the nearby bench. He looks up at the sound, tries to straighten. She waves away his instinctive call to attention and he sags back again, watching her in wary confusion.

She keeps her eyes locked on his as she says, “JARVIS, privacy protocols please. Lock down the room.”

“Of course Lieutenant Hill.”

“Lieutenant-“

She holds up a hand and Steve falls silent. It’s the first time nerves kick in, concern that she’s about to do this all wrong. But she has also never shied away from a challenge and she is absolutely done with letting him use missions to beat himself up. She should have noticed it sooner. So she steps closer and her hand rises. The cuts on his face are superficial now, but she brushes at the one over his eyebrow regardless. His hand comes up, grips her wrist gently, a question in the touch. She meets his eyes and tries for a smile that doesn’t shake with the emotions she’s stomping down.

“Humour me.”

She uses the grip he has on her wrist to tug him a few steps to the left, to the locker of first aid supplies. He huffs out a laugh as she twists her arm gently from his grip to reach for the disinfectant wipes. She offers him a more genuine smile in response, nudges him back until he drops to the bench behind him.

Her heart is hammering, hard and loud in her chest. She forces herself to steady as she palms the first wipe and nudges the nearby trashcan closer. At the last moment, she kicks off her vicious heels. His eyes warm just a little, in that appreciative way she’s started to expect. She relaxes minutely as she brushes the first wipe over his face. He hisses, instinct rather than pain, and the wipe comes away grimy and just a little pink with blood. It takes seven more before she decides his face is clean and starts wiping absently behind his ears.

Or, that’s what she intends to do, anyway. Instead, her wipe-less hand comes up to brush at the bruises the ash and dust had been camouflaging under his eyes. His breath catches at the intimacy of the touch, but the haunted look in his eyes, the broken, devastating pain, doesn’t recede beneath the heat growing in the corners. She doesn’t realize he’s reaching for her until his hands palm her hips. Her body jolts and she looks down at him in surprise.

“Sorry, I-“

She doesn’t know what instinct makes her catch his chin, but she’s glad she does when she forces his gaze back to hers. His fingers tense and squeeze on her body as she takes in the expression on his face, as her thumb presses absently against his chin. His mouth opens, an instinct, and a blush starts to spread over his cheeks. He needs this, she realizes, an anchoring to the here and now and not the things he’s fighting for. So she spreads her palm over his cheek. She is not afraid of him and she never has been, not even here, not even like this.

She knows she is safe with him.

“What are you apologizing for?” she asks him quietly, scratching gently at the hair behind his ear. His eyes flutter as she watches his face, feels the thrill of having this man willingly at her mercy. “Taking down SHIELD or your perceived inability to save Sergeant Barnes?”

He tenses beneath her and despite the heat of his hands on her hips it’s the first time she actively takes in how close they are. His thighs brush against her legs as he shifts and she’s grateful for it. The only way he can move away from her is to physically displace her. His grip on her hips makes her think that isn’t something he wants. She sighs and combs her hand through his hair, watches him arch into the touch like a cat. A streak of fondness rises in her, at this man who so easily gives himself but is so historically terrible at taking.

“I don’t think it’s SHIELD,” she murmurs, slides her hand through his hair again to see those long lashes against his cheek bones. “There’s no strong argument for revenge there. Now Barnes. Well. I think we both know Barnes has always been your Achilles heel.”

He grunts in displeasure, even as his head drops forward to rest against her stomach. His hands tense and release on her hips, reflexive, unsure, wanting. They slide around her body until his arms wrap around her completely. She fights to keep her breathing even as sparks shimmer up and down her back, as she slides her hands over his back. He shivers with the caress and she lets her lips tilt up in victory at the short trigger of his control. She scrapes the flat of her nails against his scalp just to see him shake.

“You couldn’t have saved Barnes,” she says, though it’s quiet, as close to gentle as she ever gets when she’s addressing the elephant in the room. “And if the stories are true, you couldn’t have stopped him either.”

“End of the line,” she hears him murmur. It sounds like something he’s had to repeat to himself time and time again. She hums.

“So you know he’d be beating your brains out for making this about him.”

He snorts. “At least he’d be here.”

“He will be. When he’s ready.” And she’s always believed that. She’s extrapolated from previous evidence – okay, just Romanoff, but he doesn’t need to know that – that it’s merely a matter of time before Barnes decides the life he has now isn’t the life he wants. She plans to be there when he makes that decision.

“You believe that?”

She steps back, slowly so he recognizes it as the next step and not rejection. Her hands drop to his shoulders, slide along the buckles of his uniform. She keeps her eyes on her hands, even as she feels his burning on her face. She waits a beat as she unbuckles his shield harness, as she drops it aside and goes for the Kevlar next.

“I do.”

The shiver that drills through him is hard and leaves him trembling in the wake of it. The Kevlar goes the way of harness and he’s left in the brilliant blue shirt he wears beneath. She gives herself a moment, palms resting lightly on his shoulders, to take in the build of him. She allows herself to acknowledge there’s nothing clinical about it, no strengths and weaknesses to catalogue in the physicality of the man beneath her. His eyes are so, so blue as he looks up at her, as his palms drop to the edge of her dress.

Her intake of air is involuntary, but the loss of control worth it for the awareness it spreads over his face. His pinkies slip beneath the edge of her dress, stroke the bare sensitive skin of her outer thigh before his palms smooth up over silk and cotton. The touch leaves heat in its wake, over her hips until they’re nestled in the curve of her waist.

“Thank you,” he murmurs and she lets her hands skitter down over his chest. He tugs her closer, his head tilting back for a moment assessing. Then he’s leaning forward, pressing a kiss to her breastbone through the silk of her clothing. “For having faith.”

His voice has dropped to a low rumble and she uses his focus on her body to let her eyes flutter for a moment. “Not usually my gig,” she finally says, stepping back with the gentle pressure he puts on her waist. She knows what’s coming next, recognizes the vaguely predatory shift in the way he stands, in the tilt of his body. “But you seem to be fresh out.”

His self-deprecating chuckle is a puff of air against her lips. He towers above her like this, barefoot and pressed against him. He never seems this big when they’re working and she probably shouldn’t like it as much as she does, but his hands are big and warm on her back, one slipping up until he has the nape of her neck in that broad palm. This time, she can’t stomp on the shiver quick enough and it shimmers through her. A smile skitters over his face and he strokes his thumb over the side of her neck. Her head tilts despite the control she wants to hold onto, submissive but not submitting. Not with the way her hands are already teasing at the edge of his shirt.

His head tips down and his mouth skitters over her neck next. She shakes, hard, and breathes out harshly rather than let it turn into the moan in her chest. His head comes back up, watches her, looking for anything that will tell him she doesn’t want this. Instead she swallows and uses her grip to tug him back with her.

“You need to clean up.”

He allows her to lead him a few steps before he stops dead, before he looks her straight in the eye and so, so serious. “Is that an offer, Maria? Or an invitation.”

The heat of his voice slides over her nerve endings and into her blood, pounding through her chest and into her ears. But she is strong when she meets his eyes, clear and level-headed and very, very aware of what she wants.

“Both.”

He watches her for another moment and she lets him, lets him pick apart the clear want in her gaze, the assurance and confidence in her choice. Then he moves, his eyes still locked on hers as he slips his hand from her neck and fiddles with the tab of her zipper.

“Are you sure?”

It takes her a moment to understand. He knows her well enough that she doesn’t renege on decisions she makes, she goes into situations knowing every outcome and aware of which one she’s chosen. But this isn’t about her. It’s about him, about what she’s ready to take. Her breath catches again because the look in his eyes is not gentle. He wants this too, and he wants it with her.

“Yes.”

She gasps as he goes right for her zipper, slides it down her back. His hands come back up to her shoulders, skimming the fabric off her skin. It leaves her exposed, even in her underwear, but his gaze is nothing short of outright admiration. His hands return to her skin, flit from one scar to the next as he takes her in. She shivers under the blatant appreciation, eyes fluttering shut as his hand cradles her skull again.

Then he kisses her.

There’s nothing restrained in it, no questions, and no hesitation. He kisses her like he’s been thinking about it for a while and she’s surprised to find that Romanoff had been very, very wrong about his skill. Her hands come up around his neck and she presses herself into him, feels the spandex of his shirt slide against her bare stomach. He groans as she responds, as she takes the kiss deeper, harder. The hand pressed against her lower back wraps around her hips and keeps her immobile, even as he strokes maddeningly where her pelvis is closest to the skin.

Her hands slip over his biceps, don’t both pausing even for a moment as she finds the edge of his shirt. “Off.”

He chuckles into her mouth, releases her long enough to pull the shirt over his head himself. The bruises on his torso are already starting to fade, but her hands trace one at his kidneys, slide up to brush against one right in the middle of his chest. Her hands come away feeling sticky with sweat and she tilts her head back to chuckle.

“Shower, Captain.”

His pupils blow wide as he looks down at her again, as he brushes just beside the bra strap on her shoulder. “Lead the way, Lieutenant.”

Oh. Oh wow. She is never going to be able to hear her rank out of his mouth again. Not when the sound of it in that low, deep voice has locked itself into her memory. She allows herself to tremble as she turns in his arms, to feel what that does to her. His mouth presses against the back of her neck before he nudges her ass with her hips. She does indeed lead the way, even reaches into the stall to set the water running. She vaguely hears him undo his belt, the rustle of fabric as his pants fall to the ground. She tests the water temperature, fiddles with it until it’s just the right side of scalding. She’s about to step back when his palm presses between her shoulder blades, slides over her skin in admiration.

“Maria.”

His fingers hook under the waistband of her panties, and she looks over her shoulder with hot eyes and a nod. She’s the one to remove her bra, drops it aside as she steps out of her panties. It doesn’t take much to shove down his boxer-briefs and then he is wonderfully, gloriously naked. Honestly, she expects him to be self-conscious, but as her hands press against his abs she realizes he isn’t. It takes time for her to understand he’s too distracted with her to feel embarrassed or insecure.

“Fuck.”

She shivers again, wonders with the tiny part of her brain that is too agent to turn off if hearing him swear is better than hearing him murmur her rank, half dressed and aroused. His palms press against her hips, slide over the curve of her waist. He cups a breast, weighs it for a moment in his palm before he leans down to take the nipple in his mouth. She gasps, and her back arches, steam curling against her skin from the shower stall and pleasure spiking through her nerves from his tongue as it presses, swirls, tests.

“Steve.”

He growls and releases her nipple with a pop, crowds her back into the shower stall. She gasps as the water sluices over her, feels dizzy as he uses his arms to switch places. The water curls into the drain in cloudy swirls of ash and dust as his hair goes dark blond. He pulls her close again and takes her mouth, uncaring as to the water that spills over him and onto her. He’s big enough that he’s shelter, taking the pounding spray while his hand threads into her hair and angles her head just right.

She’s not sure she ever expected him to take this control. Her nails dig into the skin above his hips as she relaxes and takes it, lets her body go pliant and react. It’s a surprising grace here, knowing that this is Steve that she doesn’t have to be an utterly immovable force to avoid getting lost.

They’re both panting when he surfaces for air, when his hands slip along her skin until they’re cupping her ass. She threads her fingers into his hair as she arches at the touch, before her nose wrinkles as she feels the grease on her hands.

“Clean up first,” she orders and shivers at the easy way he turns from dominating to compliant. It’s more reassuring than anything else, though she’s not sure she’ll ever admit it out loud. She’s not actually a fan of sex as a power play, not that she’s against the power play in bed. But this, the way it feels like an equal give and take, her momentary surrender in exchange for caretaking… Yeah, it’s something she finds she may be able to get used to.

She wraps her arms around him to get to the shampoo installed in the wall, rests her chin on his chest as she pumps a liberal amount into her palm. He chuckles at her and presses a kiss to her forehead, but takes the hint, dropping to his knees on the tiled floor. She shivers, can’t help it as she looks down at his heated eyes, the blush on his face and that swollen, red mouth.

“You like me on my knees?” he asks and she knows that low voice is going to haunt her dreams and fantasies. For the first time since she’d really realized what she’d come here to do, she thinks maybe he might be able to ruin her. She’s not sure she’s supposed to like the thought as much as she does.

Then his mouth is pressing against her sternum and she finds herself threading her hands through his hair, shampoo and all. In fact, she discovers she’s gone so far as to forget the shampoo until the soap starts lathering in his hair. She laughs at herself, but rubs at his scalp as his mouth dances across her skin, exploratory, arousing.

“Back,” she says gently when the suds have turned grey and it’s a whole other thrill to watch him tip his head beneath the spray, to comb the suds out and watch them slide over his body. He feels the shiver that races through her and blinks his eyes open against the splash of water.

“Again?”

“Yeah,” and she reaches for the shampoo. His mouth dances lower this time, his back curving as he licks at the water droplets around her belly button. She’s not sure she’s ever been a fan of the slow burn, not sure Steve had known about what that meant, but the self-control he’s putting into arousing her is something else.

The suds aren’t quite as grey as the first time, but she scrubs shampoo into his hair a third time, just in case. His hands slide up from her knees, fingers pressing gently, just gently at the crease of her thigh and her cunt. She closes her eyes, grateful to register his still are before she instinctively spreads her legs, just a little, just enough. His fingers twitch and she gasps, catches her breath.

Not yet.

“Hey,” she says, tugs on his hair just a little so he’ll look at her. His hands stop moving, stop so much as twitching, and she has to swallow twice before she can speak again. “Clean up first, remember?”

He pouts for a moment, actually pouts, before he swipes a finger between her legs. It’s the first moment she’s really taken notice of how wet she is, how hot as she gasps. Her back arches, her hands clenching in his hair and his eyes go wide and wanting.

“Fast,” he says standing, pressing his palm against her so his fingertips just brush against the wet heat of her. “Then I get this.”

Her hips tilt instinctively, and she moans when he pulls away, gripping his biceps to steady herself. Jesus, it’s not supposed to be like this. Not really because she can already feel herself starting to think about doing this again, about what he’ll be like spread across her sheets, about how it will feel to have him above her, around her, in her.

Everything.

She sucks in air, then fixes him with the best stern gaze she can muster. “Clean, Captain.”

He kisses her first, slow and deep and thorough. “Whatever you say, Lieutenant.”

And oh, oh yes. That is most certainly turning into a kink she hadn’t known she had.

Their hands tangle on his body, in his haste and in hers and sets them both laughing. Eventually he relents and slides his soapy palms against her skin instead. She doesn’t need it, but she lets him as he leans down, nudges at her cheek with his nose until she’s angled correctly for his kiss. Suds swirl down the drain as he pulls her to him, slides his palms down her back around her ass and her hips. One stays braced against her lower spine and she figures it out a second later when his feet knock her legs apart and he presses into her folds.

He releases a sound that is part hum, part growl as he tests and explores, presses and strokes until he finds what works for her. Her hands clench on his shoulders, his arms, his back as he circles her clit, spreads the slick of her everywhere. The scent of sex mixes with soap and steam, choking her and overwhelming her senses. She thinks of running, just for a split second, before he’s pressing one thick finger inside her.

Jesus. Jesus it’s been too long and he feels so good. She moans, lets her head drop forward until she has her forehead over his heart.

“Too much?” he whispers, and there’s just enough concern in his gaze to have her shaking her head.

“More.”

He presses kisses against her wet hair as he slides a second finger along side the first, crooks them and rubs, exploratory and focused in equal measure. Her breath is harsh in her lungs and she cannot get purchase on him with the way the water makes everything hot and slippery and God, so, so perfect.

“There you are,” he murmurs against her ear, tucking his cheek against her temple. “You feel so good, sweetheart.”

She’s going to kill him for the endearment because she is no one’s god damned sweetheart, but before she can, he finds that perfect angle and her whole body starts to tremble with it.

“Oh. Oh there we go. That’s it isn’t it? That’s perfect. I can feel it.”

She can too if the slow rocking of her hips is any indication, pushing him to move, to rub to do _something_. He releases a desperate sound against her ear and she grips at his neck and his hair as he slides his fingers out, then thrusts back in again. It’s perfect, friction and the wonderful stretch just right. It’s not hard to follow the rhythm he establishes, rocking her hips, twisting and angling for more, pressure and friction and him.

“Okay, okay,” he says on a strange laugh, choked and maybe even as desperate as she feels. “Okay, sweetheart. Like this.” And he presses his palm to her back, turns them just a little until he can angle her against the wall, and yanks her hips forward. It gives him enough space to get his palm on her clit and her vision goes dark around the edges. Oh, oh he is good. He is better than she expected.

Then her body goes tense, shakes apart on his fingers with his mouth in the crook of her neck. She doesn’t cry out, rarely does when she comes, but he’s pressing gentle kisses against her face as the orgasm recedes and leaves her shivering and gasping in its wake.

He’s right there when she manages to blink her eyes open, his mouth diving in, taking, devouring. Grounding in a way she hadn’t expected. She still moans, just a little, as he slides his fingers from her cunt, and feels the slickness of herself against her hip.

“Beautiful.”

She laughs, raises shaking arms so she can thread her fingers through his hair. “Jesus.”

He hums into her mouth, smiles down at her when he pulls away again. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

She laughs again, isn’t sure she’s ever laughed this much during sex, nor grinned so hard as she looks up at him. He looks so very proud of himself, so very admiring of her and she slips her hands down his chest until she can wrap a fist around him. His eyes widen, like he’s forgotten he’s even aroused and it’s her turn to arch an eyebrow at him.

“Protection?”

“Isn’t that my question?”

She presses her mouth to his jaw, strokes up the length of him and back down. “I’m clean,” she offers. “And pregnancy isn’t a problem.”

He looks down at her for a moment, and through the pleasure so plain on his face, she sees the question in his eyes. It’s one for another time, however, and she presses herself against him. He takes the hint, cups her ass for a moment before he slips his palms down her thighs. A moment later he’s kissing her, the same languid thing he’d pressed to her mouth in the aftermath of her orgasm. She sighs into the kiss, yelps a moment later when he lifts her easily.

She laughs brightly as her arms come around his neck, an anchor more than for her own support. She’d forgotten about the strength of him, the fact that she mustn’t weigh more than a feather. He laughs back at her, pleased to have taken her off-guard, shifting his hands until he’s rubbing against her cunt in delicious ways. She sighs, lets herself languish in the feeling for a moment before reaching between her spread legs. He gasps as she closes a fist around him and lines him up, pushes in with patience and control he shouldn’t have. She squirms, wants him in as deep as he’ll go.

He growls, shifts his grip to press her hips back into the tile wall. “Stop, or this ends now.”

There’s a thrill in that, in how close he is now that he’s thinking about it, in the control he doesn’t have as he slips into her. His jaw is taut as she runs her hand over his skin, strokes at his neck and tries to just breathe against the hot stretch of his cock.

“Fuck, Maria.”

The next moment, he’s pulling back, just a little, enough to make her moan before he slams back into her. Her eyes go wide and she gasps, body arching at the burn, the stretch, the pleasure.

“Shit,” he breathes, one hand slipping beneath her ass to support her, even as his other traces absent patterns up her side. “Shit. Did I-“

She grips his neck, lets her eyes open hot and needy, digs her nails in until his breath catches. “Steve,” she says. “Move.”

It’s the permission he needs, maybe the absolution and he buries his head in her shoulder as he thrusts in earnest. And God, God it is everything, the wonderful push and slide, heat and friction and the smell of shampoo and shower gel. She rolls her hips on every thrust, feels like every time she does he moves just a little deeper, a little harder. His pace speeds up, his control fraying as he finally raises his head, meets her eyes.

“Sweetheart.”

She groans, presses her forehead to his. It should be too intimate, it should be too intense, but his hand tightens on her side and his pace increases just a little bit more, more desperate, more erratic.

“You feel so good,” he whispers. “God, Maria.”

She sighs, groans at his next harsh thrust as it jars her up the tile. She manages to get one hand off his neck, shove it between their bodies. He has her wrist in his hand before she can get there, presses her palm flat to the tile before it’s his palm against her hip, his thumb against her clit. It’s erratic though, trying to focus in the wake of his own pleasure and not even close to enough. But then he’s coming, groaning against her shoulder, and she smooths her hands over the tense muscles of his back.

She expects him to slide out of her then, prepares herself for the empty feeling of unfinished pleasure, but when he raises his head, his eyes are hard with determination. His thumb presses down, quick, tight circles on her clit until she’s gasping with the pressure of his thumb, the clutch of her body around his cock. He groans when she comes again, oversensitive but as lost in her orgasm as she is.

This time he does pull out, holds onto her until she can get her shaking legs beneath her. She laughs a little again as she grins up at him. He’s grinning back at her, eyes alight and not quite as haunted as they’d been before. It’s there of course, and she knows she’s battling a ghost here, but she can’t help but feel a little proud for taking the burden, just for a little while.

He leans down to kiss her, his hands gentle as they stroke over her body, the caress soothing this time. She sighs into the kiss, returns the favour in broad strokes down his back.

“There’s a great little diner in town,” he says between kisses, his hands stable on her hips. “We could call it a debrief, if you’d like.”

She strokes her hands over his scalp, thinks about how very much she wants to do this again. “Or we could call it a date.”

His eyes light up. “Yeah?”

She shrugs, lets him kiss her again. “Yeah.”

God, his smile is already worth it. Maybe this is why she’s never let it go this far, why the tension between them had been worth it. It’ll be so easy to lose herself to him, to lose herself in him. But his eyes are clear when he looks down at her, as the palms that break men worship her skin.

“How about we call it a beginning?”

She groans, drops her head to his shoulder. “We can call it whatever you want if you promise to stow the sap.”

His thumb beneath her chin tilts her head as he chuckles, peppers kisses over her forehead, her nose, her eyelids. “Not sure I can make that deal.”

She sighs as she kisses him, then climbs from the shower. The towels Stark keeps on hand are fluffy and soft as she wraps one around her body, tucks the ends in, then turns back to him. “I’ll see you tonight, Captain.”

“Consider it a date.”

She has to bite her lip against the laugh as she rolls her eyes. “Idiot.”

His laughter follows her all the way out of the locker room.


End file.
